CRM for Outlook is one of big differentiating features for Dynamics CRM in the CRM segment of products.

Sometimes though it can lead you into issues into undocumented territory. I was trying to get CRM 2015 for Outlook installed during analysis for one of my clients on Outlook 2010 with IE 11 installed on the machine.

Surprisingly, the installer will not install. On tracing, I found the following error:

11:57:11| Error| You cannot use a version of Internet Explorer that is earlier than Internet Explorer 8.11:57:11| Info| Currently unsupported version is Internet Explorer 0.

The thing with CRM is whenever you think you have seen lot of weird issues, it brings something to the screen which is unchartered territory.

We have IE 11 installed with a supported configuration for CRM 2015, still the error is saying that IE version is less than 8, on tops Info log says that it is 0.

Awesome!

Ok, my digging started for Solutions. I saw solutions like this one:

· Repair Office: Didn’t work for me and also for people in community

· Reset Internet explorer: Didn’t work for me and also for people in community.

Recently I have been involved in analysing data migration analysis from a third party CRM system into our great product – Dynamics CRM.

Let me add a quick one liner for a good practice as well!

I really appreciate the efforts from the client as they understood the need of doing a Data migration analysis, as in such projects that is one of the main pillars for Success of the project.

Well, coming back to the issue at hand here. Client wanted to import Created on Date as well for historical references. CRM import wizard started throwing following weird error on the imports:

The date/time format is not valid, or the value is outside the supported range

Issue resolution is quite simple:

Select the date/time column in Excel and then right click and choose “Format Cells” and choose one of the relevant category format i.e: Date and choose the format that relates to the date time format of the system, then save and try to import again

Please note: Correct format is very important, so be careful English(UK) is different from English(US) for instance.

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing as usual!

If you liked the post, Please leave feedback – it is important to keep writing content that you really need!

Have you been getting lot of notifications on your Dynamics CRM message bar recently?

Well, it’s a good thing all right to have messages for different features/errors/warnings available in the product. The amount of messages in the notification can become overwhelming. Here are some of the common messages you can see. I have just tried to collate a few here and resolution:

· Interactive Service hub for CRM 2016: There is no supported way to get this one removed yet.

· Apps for CRM including Outlook App: There is a system setting for this one:

Here it is: (Settings->Administration –> System Settings) under General Tab

· Enable server based SharePoint integration: The only way to resolve this one is to configure server based integration.

· Sometimes you might wish to get users CRM for tablets app message.

Here it is: (Settings->Administration –> System Settings) under General Tab

· Alerts in CRM 2015 onwards: Here is a cool article to get rid of this one here:

It’s not out there yet – due to number of fixes required which I found during testing.

Meanwhile, there is a small update for the browser. It will be now published as a paid product soon. The reasons behind this decision is to provide continuous support to the Security Role browser as an add-on with dedicated support and also to pay hosting costs required to keep this blog running with other initiatives you will see soon.
Here is a quick poll for you guys to give me feedback:

So, if you want the solution to the problem, you can stop here and refer the link mentioned above.

I wanted to go a bit ahead than that and mention why CRM administrators and consultants face this error?

9 out of 10 times this error is due to incorrect SPN configuration.

Well let me start by trying to put it in very simple fashion for Technical audience:

Put simply, an SPN (Service Principal Name) mapping allows a service on a particular server to be associated with an account responsible for the management of the service, thereby permitting mutual Kerberos Authentication. To use mutual Kerberos authentication, the Windows security layer must be able to determine the account that a service is using.

With an SPN map defined in Active Directory (AD), the Windows account responsible for the service can be ascertained and used for Kerberos authentication. This mapping is necessary because many clients will compose an SPN based on the hostname and port the client is connecting to. Many services register SPNs for this reason.

Didn’t understand this jargons spoken above?

Ok, let’s try to make it a little more understandable for the rest of us now in normal language.

CRM can have a database server separate to the Application Server (where IIS is hosted). For security purposes, it is advisable to run CRM as a service account which is also existed on Domain.

Similarly, it is advisable to run SQL server on the Database server in a separate service account on domain.

So, when SPN is not configured Application server is not able to authenticate SQL server as both are running under different accounts.

SPN creates a mapping so that Authentication can happen and thus reports start working most times after this is configured correctly.

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing!

Please do leave comments to share feedback and do share on your social networks.

RSS Feeds

Disclaimer

All Blog posts and code samples are my personal endeavor on my personal time, and as such, all the views and opinions expressed here are solely mine and don’t represent the views or opinions of my employer(s), clients, or associates. All content and information are provided "AS IS" and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall I be liable for any claims, losses, or damages of any third party or for lost profits or any special, indirect, incidental, consequential or exemplary damages, howsoever arising, even if I have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
I do not tolerate spam, irrelevant, hateful speech/arguing, racism, and abuse comments of any kind. Please don't attempt to make such comments, they will be deleted as soon as I am informed.